The hodgepodge of body shops, mobile home parks and dollar stores that forms the Route 1 landscape may not look like the future of one of the most dynamic counties in the nation.
But Howard County?s Department of Planning and Zoning has its eyes on the 13-mile stretch of Route 1 for future growth.
“Route 1 is the answer to the question, ?Where do we grow from here?? ” said Dick Story, CEO of the Howard County Economic Development Authority.
The Department of Planning and Zoning estimated in its 2000 General Plan that all of the county?s viable land will be developed by the year 2020.
However, the county will be strained with development pressure as the state braces for 40,000 to 60,000 new jobs, due to recommendations from the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, a Defense Department body that consolidates and closes military bases.
County Executive James Robey recently created a 26-member task force and budgeted for a senior staff adviser to address the ways the population surge will change the county.
Howard has a limit of 1,750 new residential units per year. Of these, 250 a year are now dedicated to units on Route 1.
Because growth pressure is mounting as available land wanes, the Department of Planning and Zoning is focusing its attention on areas of the county that already have been developed.
The department predicts Route 1 will mature into a livelier county player in the next two to three decades.
“Rather than slamming into a wall and stopping, let?s coast to 2020 and phase in the build-out of Howard County,” Story said.
The Route 1 area is more desirable than the open areas in the western part of the county because prices are lower, and it flows off county water and sewer lines.
“You cluster your density in places you?ve planned for it, with roads, water, sewer, and schools in that community,” Story said.
The Department of Planning and Zoning has been carefully planning the redevelopment of Route 1. In 2004, the department created three new zoning districts that lend an urban feel to the area. Redevelopment in the corridor has just begun.
One planned project, called Patuxent Square, will add 80 apartments and about 14,400 square feet of commercial space in North Laurel. The Route 1 corridor newsletter lists Patuxent Square as promising to include affordable housing. An Elkridge Crossing project is expected to include 362 apartments and more than 122,000 square feet of commercial space. The builder, Brantly Development Group, has not determined the price range for the apartments.
Commercial redevelopment will also occur on Route 1.
Atlantic Realty plans to renovate a vacant former Burlington Coat Factory building into a development with commercial condominiums for retail and service uses at the corner of routes 1 and 175.
The Department of Planning hopes to shrink back from the McMansions of the past decade, and look to mixed-use developments there. New building on Route 1 should model Maple Lawn, a mixed-used development taking shape near Fulton, Story said.
The community, still in an early phase of building, looks like Georgetown in Washington, D.C., but without the history. It is a tightly packed blend of retail, office space, residences and community amenities.
Planning and Zoning hopes to model the development, which allows people to live, work, play and attend school in a concentrated area.
In March, the County Zoning Board rezoned about 76 acres in Jessup along Route 1, to allow for a mix of commercial and residential building.
New developments on Route 1 would have multistory buildings located close to the street, with pedestrian friendly amenities.
“It will give people choices. They can walk downstairs and find retail, or if they want, they can still drive off somewhere else. Giving choices is worth striving for,” said Dace Blaumanis, Route 1 corridor project manager for the Department of Planning and Zoning.
McLaughlin said the main goal is for Route 1 to be create a welcoming environment.
“I?m always hearing from business owners in the corridor that there is no place to get anything to eat. Having a place where people can go to have a sandwich or get dry-cleaning done is a real advantage,” McLaughlin said.
